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Stop picking on and messing with Mums

12February 2013February 12, 2013February 12, 2013February 3, 2018

Mums are facing strain of cuts in household budgetsStop picking on and messing with Mums

What the national and Northampton Conservatives and Lib Dem both have failed to understand is who in the family will be bearing the brunt of their unnecessarily harsh cuts of between £12 and £20 a week in working families household incomes.

They have avoided it because those who are really in the firing line, those who have really been made the target by the coalition partners are the Mum’s.

I’ll no doubt be castigated by the Northampton Conservatives as I and other Labour members have been in the past by the Leader of the Council who accused us of “pulling at the heartstrings” when we speak up for those who are facing a poverty trap that has come about because of their policies.

It is the attitude of a Conservative party in Northampton who like their national colleagues are completely out of touch with reality and in fact don’t, whatever they say, care believing that poverty is a price worth paying rather than admit they are wrong and have a plan B.

They should be warned that they are messing with a formidable foe in messing with mums.

We all, or at least those of us who live in the real world, know that it is the mums who do amazing things and yet they are the very people who are being hit the hardest by the Tory – Lib Dem coalition Governments tax and benefit changes.

It is overwhelmingly the mums of who are having to have to deal with seeing their household budgets squeezed by an average of £688 from April this year rising to over £1,000 next year for working families with children.

When the impact was discussed at a recent Council meeting the reaction of the Northampton Tories was best summed up when one of their senior councillors explained it away as almost character building when he said “I was bought up in a poor family, don’t talk to me about poverty”

The attitude of ‘it didn’t do me any harm’ doesn’t recognise that things have changed since the 1940’s, something the ‘nasty party’ don’t appear to want to understand, preferring to demonize anyone who doesn’t agree with them.

The impact on over 2000 hard-working families in Northampton who have already seen their household income fall by £568 a year is something the Conservatives will ignore at their peril.

Mums will be faced with difficult decisions on how to make ends meetAs the cuts take really take hold it will be the mums who will have to juggle the ever dwindling household budget to try to keep a roof over the family’s head, keep it warm and put food on the table.

It’s an impossible situation that will lead to increased homelessness and health problems which ultimately will lead to increase taxation to pay for the outcomes of the Tories policies but even more importantly a breakdown in families and sadly because of the strain domestic strife.

It will be interesting to see how the Northampton Tories who refuse to accept the consequences of their actions explain their actions on the doorstep.

Except of course they won’t because why would they stoop to talking to those they consider as the ‘undeserving poor’.

Whatever the arrogant contempt displayed by the Tories, Northampton Labour will continue to speak up for and support all people and not as the Northampton Conservatives have chosen to do ignore the mums who really, and I’ll no doubt be accused of being sexist, are taking the brunt of the cuts in household income.

It is a pressure and strain that has been made in Downing Street and implemented in Northampton by a Conservative party who have abandoned mums and families to an increasingly desperate situation.

I can’t help wondering if the Conservatives will have any semblance of conscience when they celebrate mother’s day on the 10th March?

Messing with mums may well end up being the current days Conservatives ‘Poll Tax’ policy and moment.